When Phil Murphy replaced Chris Christie as New Jersey Governor last January, the New Jersey film world did a complete 180. Christie, who infamously did battle with MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” killed the state’s film and TV tax incentive program and with it production in the Garden State.
By July, Murphy had signed into law a robust $75 million a year incentive program that instantly put the state in direct competition with the overcrowded New York City production world. In just four months, it brought major Hollywood projects back across the Hudson River.
For producers and distributors’ bottom line, which is now being subsidized to the tune of well over a billion dollars a year by state tax incentive programs, elections matter.
